By Timothy Deal
November 11, 2015
Twenty years ago, something happened that forever changed my life: my baby sister was born on my birthday.
It was an astonishing event that had been foretold months before. My parents had announced that the new baby’s due date was around November 11. After the initial shock had faded, I was left with the deepening sense of fatalism that only an eleven-year-old boy who knows in his soul that he will likely forever have to share his birthday with another can experience. I dreaded that no longer would my special day be about me, but it would be about some smaller, cuter lifeform. As the eldest sibling, I had seen it happen before; the youngest kids got all the attention. I would have resolved to face the future with stoicism, if I knew what the word meant at the time.
We celebrated my twelfth birthday the night before, just in case. And sure enough, early in the morning on November 11, 1995, my dad woke me up to let me know he and Mom were heading toward the hospital. It was as I had foreseen. I confess I gave my mother a somewhat accusatory look before they left, as if to say, “I’m not angry with you, Mom. Just disappointed.”
After the the birth of three previous baby sisters, it was beginning to feel routine to be brought over to Grandma’s house while Mom and Dad were at the hospital. When Dad called to say Mom and newborn baby Danielle were safe and healthy, of course we were all happy, but then my conversation with Dad went something like this:
“So…another girl, huh, Dad?”
“Yeah…another sister.”
“….”
“….Yep. Sorry, looks like we’re still gonna be the only men in the family.”
“Well…that’s life.”
Okay, so I don’t know if that’s really what I said, but that was kinda my attitude at the time. It wasn’t entirely the best, but from a twelve-year-old’s perspective it’s hopefully understandable.
What I didn’t realize at the time was just how much fun it would turn out to be having a baby sister as a teenager. Little Danielle quickly stole my heart with her chubby cheeks, shiny hair, huge smile, and imaginative personality. In her preschool/kindergarten ages she delighted in grabbing onto my legs, climbing all around me while I was lying on the couch, and generally treating me as one of her most beloved toys that she could pose and ride on. (One of her strangest ideas during this period were her attempts to make me “relax,” which apparently involved looking disinterested in the world while holding specific poses.)
As Danielle grew, she continued to delight and surprise all of my family with her boundless creativity which found expression in drawings, costumes, stories, unusual pet chicken names, hieroglyphs made of crushed dandelions, oral histories of imaginary worlds, ceremonies to mark new seasons, sketchings, rubbings, paintings, designs, calligraphy, photography, and probably a lot more that I’ve forgotten. As a creative nerd, I love being able to share my interests with all my sisters, but I’ve had some of my deepest conversations about creativity and favorite stories with Danielle. She has continued to inspire creativity in me during times when I felt creatively dry. And I hope to reciprocate that inspiration as much as possible.
And instead of being a burden, sharing my birthday with my baby sister has turned out to be a huge blessing. As a friend of the family correctly predicted, I wound up getting more attention (and more presents) during my teenage and young adult birthdays because I shared them with my kid sister. While she was still small enough, it was a fun tradition to have Danielle sit on my lap while we blew out our candles, and we still get a kick out of anticipating our special day day or calling/texting/telling each other Happy Birthday when it arrives.
So with all of that said, Happy Birthday, Danielle! Thanks for being the best birthday present I’ve ever been given.
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